Heiko Braak (born 16 June 1937) is a German anatomist at the Clinical Neuroanatomy Section, Department of Neurology, Center for Biomedical Research, University of Ulm, Germany. He has received awards for his work on Alzheimer's disease and Parkinson’s disease. Braak and his colleagues described disease progression in terms of six different stages, each involving abnormal pathology in particular neurological structures. The type and severity of symptoms is correlated to progression through the Braak stages.
Braak studied medicine at the universities of Hamburg, Berlin, and Kiel. He completed his doctorate in medicine from Kiel University in 1964, and his habilitation in anatomy in 1970.
In 1974, Braak was appointed Professor of Anatomy at Kiel. In 1978 Braak served as a Visiting Professor of Neurology at Harvard Medical School where he worked with Norman Geschwind. Braak published Architectonics of the Human Telencephalic Cortex in 1980.
From 1980–2002 Braak was professor and director of Institute of Clinical Neuroanatomy, Johann Wolfgang Goethe-University, Frankfurt am Main. From 2002–2009 he was a guest researcher at the Anatomical Institute. In 2009, he moved to Ulm University. Currently he is based at the Clinical Neuroanatomy Section, Department of Neurology, Center for Biomedical Research, University of Ulm, Germany.
Braak’s further research has focused on the morphology and pathoanatomy of the human central nervous system, in particular of the cerebral cortex (1980).
Braak has contributed extensively to the neuropathology of Alzheimer's disease and Parkinson's disease. In particular, he and his wife Eva Braak introduced a classification of Alzheimer's disease into six distinct pathoanatomical stages, now commonly referred to as Braak and Braak stages, based on the topographical distribution pattern of neurofibrillary changes from circumscribed parts of the limbic system to the higher neocortical association fields. A similar classification was proposed in 2003 for the pathoanatomical changes associated with idiopathic Parkinson's disease.
Braak and his wife, Eva Braak, were the first to describe the pathological changes of argyrophilic grain disease, a previously unknown form of senile dementia.
in 2007, Braak and co-authors advanced a ‘dual-hit hypothesis’ about the pathogenesis of idiopathic Parkinson's disease, according to which an unknown pathogen akin to a slow-virus may enter the nervous system through both the nasal and intestinalmucosae, eventually resulting in a cascade of neurodegenerative events in the brain.
Selected publications
Braak, H.; Braak, E. (1987). "Argyrophilic grains: characteristic pathology of cerebral cortex in cases of adult onset dementia without Alzheimer changes". Neuroscience Letters. 76 (1): 124–127. doi:10.1016/0304-3940(87)90204-7. ISSN0304-3940. PMID243859. S2CID34334795.
Braak, H; Braak, E (April 1991). "Demonstration of amyloid deposits and neurofibrillary changes in whole brain sections". Brain Pathology (Zurich, Switzerland). 1 (3): 213–6. doi:10.1111/j.1750-3639.1991.tb00661.x. PMID1669710.
Braak, H; Braak, E (1991). "Neuropathological stageing of Alzheimer-related changes". Acta Neuropathologica. 82 (4): 239–59. doi:10.1007/BF00308809. PMID1759558.
12Iqbal, Khalid; Sisodia, Sangram S.; Winblad, Bengt (2001). "Eva Braak, 'Outstanding but unassuming'". Alzheimer's disease: advances in etiology, pathogenesis and therapeutics. Chichester: Wiley. pp.xxvi–xxvii. ISBN0-471-52176-0.
↑Braak, H. (1963). "Das Ependym der Hirnventrikel von Chimaera monstrosa (mit besonderer Berücksichtigung des Organon vasculare praeopticum)". Zeitschrift für Zellforschung und Mikroskopische Anatomie. 60 (4): 582–608. doi:10.1007/BF00331185.
↑Kuhlenbeck H. (1977). The central nervous system of vertebrates. Vol. 5, Part I, p. 89. Karger, Basel.
↑Braak, H. (1962). "Über die Gestalt des neurosekretorischen Zwischenhirn-Hypophysen-Systems von Spinax niger". Zeitschrift für Zellforschung und Mikroskopische Anatomie. 58 (2): 265–276. doi:10.1007/BF00320188.
